


Coast to Coast

by twinkinu



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: A little bit of everything, Adventure, Angst, Brotherly Bonding, Feel-good, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Mystery, Sea Monsters, Stangst, babes, buried treasure, its going to be great, land monsters, the twins travel the whole world instead of just the arctic, this is a long term project for me but im really proud of it so far and i need support
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-20 02:42:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9471815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinkinu/pseuds/twinkinu
Summary: They started in Oregon, wanderlust nestled comfortably in their thoughts as they pressed on toward their destination: an old, nostalgic town in New Jersey that the twins once called home. But they had no intentions of visiting familiarity without first fulfilling their childhood dream... so instead of crossing the country, they sailed across the seas.Or: Stan and Ford are on the west coast, they want to visit the east coast, and they take the long way around.  A series of short vignettes following two old men on their circumnavigational adventures.





	1. Gravity Falls, Oregon, USA

_i_ _._ Gravity Falls, Oregon, USA.

 _You were a shameless child, bandied by stiff cross currents._ _A_ _nything but mild, yes and no just simply weren't invented yet._

꙳

Stan closed his final bag, the soft ring of the zipper echoing between his ears in the near-silent house. He sat back and flipped through his mental checklist, ensuring he hadn't forgotten a single supply. Although, in all honesty, Ford was sure to pack more than was necessary, fully anticipating his brother to come up empty on some vital supply.

After all, Stanley hadn't seen his twin all day, and already it was nearly two in the morning.

Ford was stowed away in his lab, arranging his luggage and tinkering with new inventions that, with any luck, would help them along their voyage. A portable water purifier that could make seawater drinkable, a compass that functioned properly on all sides of the earth, coats made from multidimensional fabrics that assisted one's body in maintaining homeostasis in every possible weather condition.

He'd spent the past several weeks studying languages and wind patterns, identifying at which seasons they would be traversing which waters and which countries and places Stan probably shouldn't be permitted to enter. He'd packed all three of his journals as well as a couple of empty ones, thick auburn leather encasing warm tea-colored paper, an aureate six-fingered hand adorning the cover of each book as if anticipating the new sketches and notes that would soon fill its leafy pages.

An entire duffel bag was chosen to exclusively harbor all weapons. A long-range taser, a positronic needler, a crossbow, his quantum destabilizer, a number of grenades, various explosives, some daggers. The only weapons he planned to take that weren't stored in the bags were the three that he carried at all times, never daring to remove: hidden between his foot and the wall of his left boot, his multitool; slid into an ages-old neoprene calf holster, his drop-point serrated hunting knife; concealed within a sash-style holster draped across his chest, his raygun.

Ford was prepared.

It took quite a bit of analytics, problem solving, and trial-and-error for the doctor to determine how to carry all of his luggage from the basement up to the front door in a single trip, but he eventually managed. A smile etched its way onto his face, cheeks warming at the sight of Stan crouched beside his few messy bags and cases, rifling through an old, ratty duffel bag and discarding some of its contents into a pile at his right.

"I would suggest that you refrain from unpacking until we're already _on_ the boat, Stanley."

Stan sat up straight, a grin spreading across his face as his brother's smooth, friendly voice broke the silence in the air. "Well, I remember ya sayin’ somethin’ about wantin’ all the weapons in one bag. Still think that's a dumb idea, if I ever heard one, but hey. You're the genius." He turned around and gestured to the pile beside him, which contained his brass knuckles, two semi-automatic pistols, a switchblade, and a grocery bag full of smoke bombs. "Go ahead, pack 'em up. I got an AR in here too, but I can't find it just yet."

Ford pinched the bridge of his nose as chuckles bubbled out from his throat, soft and genuine. They tinted the air a purple-pink. "How do you lose an assault rifle, Stanley?"

"How d'you lose an assault rifle, Stanley," he younger twin mimicked, voice twisted in a mocking nature, his right hand flapping in the air to imitate Ford's mouth opening and closing. "Shut yer yap, Brainiac. It’s around here somewhere.”

Ford rolled his eyes, residual laughs still shaking his shoulders. He dropped his bags carefully to the floor, then zipped open the weapons duffel to begin loading his brother's things into it. "It's best for us to keep all of our weapons in one place. This way, we can avoid losing track of any of them and risking that they fall into the wrong hands."

"God forbid the 'wrong hands' manage to get ahold of the whole damned bag, leavin’ us defenseless," Stan muttered, shoving all his clothes haphazardly back into the bag he had opened, zipping it up after successfully confirming that it did not hold his M16.

"Hey," said Ford, nudging his twin on the shoulder so he would look up at him. "We have each other's backs, remember? We're never defenseless." He offered a reassuring smile, which Stan returned, and reached back into the duffel to retrieve something. "Keep these. If it'll make you feel better." He handed his brother the brass knuckles.

"Oy, what'd I say about gettin' all sappy on me?" Stan scolded, snatching the dusters from Ford's hands. But there was a ghost of a smile dancing on the edges of his lips the way that warm rosy-pink dances on the tip of a young boy's nose after spending long, chilly evenings working toward a distant dream, the way that comfortable nostalgia dances in the back of an old man's mind after being reunited with a lost friend. The quiet almost-smile indicated nothing but fondness, and when Ford saw it his expression took on a wistful dance of its own.

Not long after that, they started packing up the car, eager to get on the road. It was a little less than four hours to drive to Newport, where their trawler was waiting, and they wanted to set sail by dawn so that they could get a good start before the late summer heat kicked in.

The road stretched on ahead of them, Stan drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he listened to his brother speak excitedly about plans and ideas that he had, places he wanted to visit and what adventures he thought might lie in wait for them there.

Stan smiled as his brother spoke, the researcher’s gentle orchid-purple voice painting animated illustrations of the land, the sea, and their millions of undiscovered secrets and hidden inhabitants. Excitement swirled deep in Stan's core as they conversed throughout the ride.

Loading their bags and settling into the Stan O' War II once they arrived at Newport was almost effortless; the twins had been preparing for this day for so long that neither of them had any focus other than completing everything necessary in order to set sail.

And when their boat set out, cruising westward across the Pacific Ocean, nostalgia and wanderlust gripped the hearts of both brothers, leaving them breathless as they beat on, tall orange-colored clouds and pearlescent rays of light hitting their smiling faces as the sun rose on their long-awaited adventure.

꙳

_Here we go, mistaking clouds for mountains. Oh, here's the thing that brings the sparrows to the fountains. Oh, here's the thing that makes us run for the highlands. Oh, here we go, mistaking clouds for mountains. Autonomy._

꙳

_Lyrics (c) Andrew Bird._

_I do not own Gravity Falls._

 


	2. Kiska, Alaska, USA

_ii._ Kiska, Alaska, USA.

 _Your future’s a machine with the mechanics of a dream._ _A_ _nd it’s your mind that spins the wheel and your heart that makes you feel all the guilt for all your sins. Oh, and as that wheel spins, well, it plays as they believed, and for your [brother] you have grieved. Oh, the world still deceives you as it turns._

꙳

The evening sky above them to Stan looked like a nursery, a soft periwinkle ceiling sprinkled with pastel yellow stars. They had been on the ocean for about a week, and it came as a pleasant surprise when Ford told him that they were nearing some little islands in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere; they had originally planned not to stop until they reached Japan, but the winds carried them elsewhere and while Stan adored the time he was spending with his brother, crossing the entire Pacific without first acquiring a good pair of sea legs seemed like a daunting task.

“Ya sure there’s somethin’ out there?” Stan leaned forward, squinting out at the mass of fog ahead of them. The mild mid-September air tickled his nose.

“If the global positioning system I assembled is accurate – and it is,” Ford offered his commentary while Stan attempted (and failed) to navigate the misty waters – “we’re coming upon the Aleutian Islands right now.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t see a thing.” Stan looked up at the sky, which had been an eternity high just moments ago. Now, the pastel galaxy was overtaken by clouds, their thick, ominous grey expanding over the pale Alaskan sun and covering the baby blue gloaming in a low canopy. He experimentally reached out in front of him, and just as he feared, he couldn’t see his own hand through the fog. “Uh, Sixer?”

Ford glanced around, admittedly a bit unnerved by the encroaching darkness. He waved a hand, however, a confident smile cracking his face. “Listen, Stanley, we’ll be just fine. This GPS has infallible accuracy; we can manage a half hour without being able to see. I can navigate our exact location using this device-”

The trawler came to an abrupt stop when it collided with a dry, rocky shore. “As long as ya pay attention to it, ya can,” Stan quipped, rubbing his face and straightening himself from having been thrown forward against the helm. He winced at the series of pops that cracked from his brittle spine and rubbed at the small of his back, cursing his age.

There was a moment of tense quiet as Stan stewed at his brother, but the bitter silence was interrupted by a short, guttural laugh that burst forth from Ford’s mouth despite his attempts to suppress it. From the opaque heather clouds, Stan heard his twin’s voice emerge. “Hell of a first docking, eh, brother?”

The younger looked in the direction of the baritone, momentarily stunned. After only a matter of seconds, he broke into a fit of laughter, supporting himself with his hands on his knees. Ford joined in the outburst of chuckles, and the brothers’ mirth rose in the cloudy sky like yellow helium balloons.

“Guess I’m not the only one who can screw up, am I, Sixer?”

“Hey!” Ford threw a playful punch in the direction of Stan’s voice and managed to make contact with the conman’s shoulder. “Shut up!”

The scientist crouched down and started feeling around the floor as their laughter died down, groping the floorboards like a blindman in search of the satchel that he kept beneath the helm. Once he found it, he dug around until he found a high-beam flashlight, then he switched it on. “There we go,” he smiled, shining it up into Stan’s face and revealing his visage through the heavy fog. Stan reacted in the exact way for which Ford had hoped, leaping backward from the bright, white beam and rubbing his eyes as he cringed violently away.

“Sweet Moses, Ford! Watch it with that thing!”

Ford chuckled, taking out a second flashlight and tossing it to his brother. “Go push us off the sand so I can drop anchor, you knucklehead.”

“Aha! Once again, bro, your freaky brains are useless compared to my punching!”

“Well, try not to punch anything, if you can. Just push.”

“Can’t make any promises.” Stan switched his flashlight on, grabbing a large duffel of supplies to bring along; he didn’t bother to check the bag’s contents before climbing to the bow and hopping over the rail onto the beach. He shone the flashlight over the boat to assess any damage done. Fortunately, none of the damage was too bad, and the trawler was only a few feet up the beach. “Ya ready?”

“Whenever you are!”

“Alright…” Stan cracked his knuckles before pressing his palms firmly against the side of the boat, letting out a long grunt as he pushed against its great weight. His strength wasn’t what it used to be, but the small boat inched back into the water with relative ease. Once it was successfully returned to sea, Stan turned his beam of white light back to Ford and watched the researcher measure out a length of rope before lowering the anchor. Then, he hopped out of the boat and landed beside Stan.

They began their trek inland without delay, eager to search the wilderness that awaited them for treasures and mysteries. “Kiska, Alaska, United States,” the inventor read off of the screen of his GPS. “Hm… Perhaps we should turn back.”

“What for?”

“Well, if I remember correctly, Kiska was occupied by Japan in World War II. Now, it’s National Historic Landmark on one side and a National Wildlife Refuge on the other, which means it’s one big federal law that we’re walking all over."

Stan rolled his eyes, giving Ford a playful shove. “What, you’re allowed to break the universe but ya can’t even break the law? If we’re ever gonna get to Jersey, ya can’t poop out on me at the first little federally protected island we come across. Now let’s explore a little, alright?”

Ford laughed softly and nodded, scanning the area with his flashlight to oblige.

Then, the fog began to part. The sun hesitantly shone through. And a crater appeared before them, a small bowl of rubble and dust.

“This must be part of that historical landmark ya were talkin’ about, huh?” Stan kicked the edge of the crater, sending dust flying, coating his waders and freckling his face. The fog continued to dissipate until Stan could see on for a mile ahead, and his jaw dropped. “Holy smokes,” he breathed. “I guess _that’s_ it.”

A vast expanse of a battlefield lay before him, bombshells and cannons and torpedoes. Craters littered the island like seeds within a lotus pod, and burnt orange remains of machinery were strewn about everywhere. A tremendous shipwreck landed offshore, not far from where they’d anchored the _Stan O’ War II._

“Damn. That’s gotta be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. And I once saw a dead rat floatin’ in a bucket.” He smirked, waiting for a response, but his smile faded when none came. “Poindexter? Hey, am I talkin’ to myself over here?” He turned to look at his brother, but Ford was facing the other way, standing unresponsive and dangerously still. Stan took a step forward, brow furrowed in concern; his worried voice blew into the air, a quiet rosy amber amongst a moss and russet wasteland: “Stanford?”

Ford couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. Hell, he could barely _hear_ Stan right now; he could hardly _breathe._ His eyes were wide, his hands shaking, his lip quivering. He dropped his flashlight and it rolled over the lip of the crater and down to the bottom. Ahead of him, only 250 yards away, was the side of a tall hill, a wall of yellow grass and warm Alaskan dirt. Carved into the lee, like someone had taken a dagger and scribbled madly until their work was complete, there is was: an all-seeing eye.

Ford couldn’t think rationally, his thoughts plagued with obscenities and expressions of hatred; of anger; of fear; of contempt; of regret—all of it directed at himself.

_How could you have trusted him, you idiot? He would have done anything to get into this dimension._

_There’s no such thing as a friendly demon. There’s no such thing as a one-eyed muse._

_How_ stupid _you were to think he hadn’t put symbols of himself all over the world! Even now, you’re still shocked to know that you weren’t special._

 _He was right when he said you belonged with his army of_ freaks.

Stanford’s downward spiral was suddenly interrupted by the deafening _boom_ of a gunshot when a bullet sped past him. He jolted forward, launching into a panic; his right hand instinctively hovered over his raygun, but when the bullet reached its target – dead center of the triangular carving – the wall of moss and dirt crumbled down. The illustration was reduced to rubble and dust, coffee-colored gravel swirling in the air as if from a ghost’s grave.

Bill Cipher’s image was gone, or at least buried beneath seven feet of earth. Ford turned slowly to see his brother standing behind him, duffel bag wide open at his feet with its contents spilled onto the ground. On Stan’s shoulders. His hands readily in position to fire, was his assault rifle.

The younger twin waited for the ringing in his ears to die down before he relaxed, dropping the gun to his side and pulling out the magazine to signify that he was finished. “I found it,” he offered, nodding at the M16.

They walked in silence for a while, Stan investigating their surroundings and more or less leading the way while Ford continued to lose himself in his thoughts.

Eventually, Ford confessed. His voice came as a doleful utterance that split the still air like an ax cutting into a tree. “It was all my fault, Stan.”

The other man sighed. _Here we go._ He stopped walking and turned to put a firm hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I know ya think that, Sixer, but-”

“I don’t just _think_ that, Stan! It’s indisputable!  It’s a fact, an undeniable, irrefutable mark on the history of the multiverse, and it’s a mark that _I_ left! I am the sole reason that-”

“That it’s over,” Stan finished, squeezing his brother’s shoulder.

Ford smiled sadly and shook his head, remorsefully amused at his twin’s naivety. “No, _you’re_ the reason it’s over.”

“But I made that rift thing when I started your portal, right? So, I’m also kinda the reason it started, too.”

“I-” The inventor’s voice caught in his throat. “I- It’s not entirely your fault, Stanley-”

“And it’s not entirely yours, either, Stanford. I don’t care how many times we have this discussion. I’m not changin’ my mind.”

Ford took a deep breath and nodded, closing his eyes.

“Besides. He’s long gone now, and he’s never comin’ back, alright? I might not remember everythin’ about that day, but I _do_ remember punchin’ that obtuse freak into oblivion. And I _don’t_ remember that last time I punched something and it came back.” At that, Stan winked, nudging his brother playfully. “Now let’s go find ya some old relics to obsess over—and I mean _other_ than yourself. I know you’re itchin’ to get your hands on some of that rusty old tech.”

Ford let out a hesitant chuckle despite himself. “Yes. Yeah, you’re right. I am.”

“‘Cause you’re a nerd,” Stan smirked, pointing at his twin with a twinkle in his eye.

The older twin chuckled again, genuinely this time, and nodded. “Yes, Stanley. Because I’m a nerd.”  He smiled to himself, looking up as the last of the clouds melted into the summer Alaskan sky, leaving only a swirling infinity of liquid lavender-grey dotted with stars.

꙳

 _But if you turn your hands to flames, the light will burn the same whether you just pass it through or if it’s what you meant to do._ _An_ _d your sense of culpability is from the guides that you perceived. Their constant lies that you believed will show you grace when you turn to a ghost._

꙳

_Lyrics (c) Noah and the Whale._

_I do not own Gravity Falls._

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't hesitate to leave comments! I'm working really, REALLY hard on this fic, spending tons of time researching circumnavigational routes and cultures around the world and foreign mythology and nautical terminology and weather patterns and everything I can possibly research to make this fic as good and realistic as it can be. Some feedback and constructive criticism would be appreciated.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
